Secret Service Agent Runs for Senate

Ronald Kessler reporting from Washington, D.C. — Disgusted with Washington, Secret Service agent Dan Bongino decided to do something almost as brave as taking a bullet for the president. He resigned from the agency without a pension to run for the U.S. Senate from Maryland.

“The time was right to get rid of people whose entire lives have revolved around power and influence in elected political positions,” Bongino tells Newsmax. “Folks are tired of that, and I thought the opportunity was there in Maryland now to elect a guy who has led a life where consequences matter.”

Bongino (Facebook photo)

Bongino, 36, is running in the Republican primary against nine opponents to unseat Democrat Ben Cardin. Bongino joined the Secret Service in 1999 in New York, where he investigated federal crimes including bank fraud, credit card fraud, and counterfeiting. He entered the presidential protection division in 2006 and guarded Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

As an agent, Bongino had a unique perspective on how Washington works. “Watching the sausage-making going on is a disturbing process,” Bongino says. “I think folks are too eager to cut deals for their own personal glorification and gratification and aren’t really looking out for the average guy. The average guy doesn’t have an army of lobbyists and lawyers working on his behalf every day in the White House.”

As an example, Bongino cites the $535 million U.S. taxpayers have lost because the Obama administration guaranteed loans to Solyndra, owned in part by Obama insiders.

The White House pressured the Energy Department to approve the loan guarantees, despite warnings that the company was about to run out of cash. Solyndra’s largest private investor was George Kaiser, a bundler of campaign donations for President Obama in 2008.

“The Solyndra scandal occurred because of people with money who have influence and power,” Bongino says. “If we had a flat tax code rather than a 70,000-page document full of cronyism and favors, bureaucrats and elected officials wouldn’t have the power to do you any favors. That’s what we need. You would have to compete on your own on a level playing field, but that’s not what the government permits now.”

Bongino saw how wasteful the federal government could be.
“What we’re talking about is cutting the rate of growth and making the system more efficient,” he says.

Bongino has signed Americans for Tax Reform’s pledge to never raise taxes. The idea behind the pledge devised by Grover Norquist is that if the government has more money to spend, it will spend it. Instead of finding ways to fund more spending, the government should cut spending.

“Ben Cardin has never, ever voted a tax down,” Bongino says. “His entire life, he has been guided by the principle that he spends our money better than we can.”

Bongino lives in Severna Park, Md., with his wife Paula, a Web design consultant, and their two young daughters. “I didn’t want to be a man of words but of action,” he says of his decision to leave a secure job with the Secret Service. “I was willing to put it on the line to make a difference.”